The Mosaic of Muslim Religiosity and Social‐Political Attitudes in Kyrgyzstan: A Gender‐Based Exploration

Abstract

This research explores the diversity of Islam in post‐Soviet Kyrgyzstan and the implications of that diversity for social‐political attitudes. Our hypotheses are (1) Kyrgyzstani Muslims can be categorized into gender‐based religious groupings defined by various religious indicators and (2) membership in these groupings influences social‐political attitudes. Using a 2011 nationwide survey in Kyrgyzstan and applying statistical clustering, we identify three groups of religiosity within each gender. Looking at four issues such as preferences for Islam in politics and for religious versus civil law, we find significant differences among the religious groups even after region, urbanity, and ethnicity are controlled. These findings suggest that narratives treating Muslims as a single, unified community or simply contrasting Muslims and non‐Muslims need to be expanded to capture meaningful variations. Our findings are consistent with the theoretical notion that more devout Muslims form a subculture that seeks to extend Islamic values into secular realms.

Societal transitions, ethnolinguistic identities, and marital conservatism in Central Asia

“…Some of the related patterns, such as delayed entry into marriage and rising marital instability (e.g., Agadjanian & Dommaraju, 2011; Dommaraju & Agadjanian, 2018), have mirrored broader changes that are typically attributed to Western cultural influences, to which Kyrgyzstani society became greatly exposed after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. Yet, the independent period in Kyrgyzstan, as in other countries of post‐Soviet Central Asia, has also witnessed a considerable increase in conservative public narratives (Abdoubaetova, 2023) and, specifically, a rise of religiousness and corresponding resurgence of religiously sanctioned cultural norms and family/marital practices (Agadjanian, 2023; Faranda & Nolle, 2019; Laruelle, 2018). Although this religious renaissance, along with the reemergence or reconstruction of other traditional norms and practices, has been uneven and has been tightly controlled by the ruling elites, its impact on family and marriage‐related attitudes and practices, among other aspects of everyday life, may have been substantial, countervailing the influence of post‐Soviet exposure to Western norms and values.…”